We all have our weaknesses. One of mine is playing with cards again and again, not because they're necessarily effective, but because they look really, really cool. Calendal is one such card - the best character art in the whole game so far. I want that picture. Badly. Even his name is cool. He's one of the new bad-guy elves, bringing the total count up to 6. The new minion elves all have eyebrow-raisingly interesting abilities, and Calendal is no exception.

Like a surprising number of non-orc or -troll minions, he's not a warrior. This is a nasty limitation, because it means that unless you back him up with plenty of warriors, you're forced to use a cancellation strategy to use him. And since, hopefully, a deck with Calendal will have at least a couple Palantiri, you're going to have to be trudging into some greater item sites or, at least, places with wolf auto-attacks (at Isengard or the White Towers). All this means that a deck with Calendal will have to put some thought into protecting him - he doesn't take care of himself.

That's because he has bigger things on his mind: Palantiri. For the minions, it's a character, not a Ringwraith, who can wield them without some kind of support card. This is POWERFUL - with Saruman, there's always the lingering threat of losing the game to an unlucky corruption roll, which often means that the Palantiri doesn't end up getting used. But with lighter corruption penalties and no risk of immediate game loss, Calendal can use a Palantir with impunity every single turn if he fancies. And some of their abilities (Isengard's especially) make that a very nice thing to be able to do. This ability is further enhanced because MELE's Focus Palantir isn't near so effective as METW's Align Palantir - only rarely worth putting into a deck. Wisdom to Wield has more flexibility than Use Palantir, true, but if you're made a Palantir/Dwarven ring deck, you're a braver man than me. Practically speaking, Calendal is the only way you're going to be able to use the palantiri that's also worth spending the deck space on. And since those palantiri are great items - many worth MORE than their METW counterparts - this make Calendal a truly important character.

Better than Carambor? Well, no, of course not. But he definitely LOOKS better.